Sun grid demo downed by DoS attack

Sun's grid offering attracts cyber-vandals

A website demonstrating Sun Microsystems' newly launched grid service has been hit by a denial of service (DoS) attack.

The attack targeted a website demonstrating a service that transforms written text into an audio recording.

The transformation was performed on the grid, but the website was hosted outside the grid and the attack did not affect the computing cluster, according to a Sun spokesman.

"There were some minimal DoS attempts early yesterday which is normal for any internet service," the company said in an emailed statement to vnunet.com.

"The problem was resolved quickly. The Sun Grid was not compromised and there was no degradation of service for users inside the Sun Grid." 

A DoS attack overloads the resources of a system by bombarding it with bogus inquiries so that it becomes unresponsive to legitimate users.

Sun responded to the attack by removing the website with the demonstration. The demo is now only available to registered users of the grid service. 

Sun's retail grid is available to users in the US only. It requires a verified PayPal account for which users must provide information about their home address and bank accounts. This allows Sun to trace users if the grid is used for illegal activities.